Empirical analyses of the digital divide in Germany [Elektronische Ressource] : age-specific and regional aspects / vorgelegt von Katrin Schleife

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• Soziologie

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• Publié par: technischen_universitat_darmstadt
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 16
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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Technische Universitat Darmstadt¨
Empirical Analyses of the Digital Divide
in Germany
–
Age-specific and Regional Aspects
Vom Fachbereich Rechts- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften
der Technischen Universit¨at Darmstadt
genehmigte Dissertation
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Doctor rerum politicarum (Dr. rer. pol.)
vorgelegt von
Dipl.-Volkswirtin Katrin Schleife
geboren in Neu Delhi/Indien
Referent: Prof. Dr. Horst Entorf
Korreferent: Prof. Dr. Carsten Helm
Tag der Einreichung: 16. April 2008
Tag der mundlichen Prufung: 27. Juni 2008¨ ¨
Darmstadt 2008
D17Acknowledgements
This dissertationwas developedduring my time at the Centre for European Economic Re-
search (ZEW) in Mannheim. While preparing it, I have received much support – through
encouragement and advice – from many colleagues. I would like to thank all who inspired
andcommentedonmywork, whoaskedcriticalquestions, andwhoofferedtheirassistence
with reading and correcting.
In particular, I want to thank my supervisor Professor Horst Entorf. He provided me with
many helpful suggestions and comments. I am also indebted to Professor Carsten Helm,
who kindly agreed to be my second supervisor.
Numerous other people helped to improve the work on this dissertation. I am especially
grateful to Alfred Garloff who provided me with many detailed, critical, and very helpful
comments and suggestions on all parts of this dissertation, but also strongly supported
me beyond. Many thanks are also due to Irene Bertschek, Julia Haring, Bettina Muller,¨ ¨
Marianne Saam, Maresa Sprietsma, and Thomas Zwick for many fruitful discussions on
various versions of the chapters of this dissertation. I would also like to express my
gratitude to Sibylle Schmerbach, one of my academics during my studies in Berlin, for
sparking my interest in the field of statistics and demographics.
Special thanks go to Jillian Rowe for improving the English text. Moreover, I am ex-
ceptionally indepted to Karen Wirrwitz who has supported and accompanied me through
several ups and downs in the last few years.
This work has been made possible through the financial support of the Landesstiftung
Baden-Wur¨ ttemberg foundation and the Ministry of food and rural area Baden-Wur¨ ttem-
berg, which I gratefully acknowledge.
Last,butbynomeansleast,Iwanttothankmyparentsfortheirgreatsupportthroughout
all these years as well as my brother Jur¨ gen, being important in all parts of my life and
thus as well for my work and its success.
Mannheim, April 16, 2008 Katrin SchleifeivContents
Acknowledgements iii
List of Tables ix
List of Figures xii
List of Abbreviations xiii
1 Introduction 1
2 Computer Use and Employment Status of Older Workers 15
2.1 The Labor Supply Decision of Older Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1.1 Modelling the Individual Retirement Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1.2 Institutional Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.2.1 The Impact of Retirement Regulations . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.2.2 Wage Rigidities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.3 Investment in IT Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.4 Individual Preferences and Health Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1.5 Labor Demand for Older Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.1.5.1 Productivity of Older Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.1.5.2 Technological Change and Rising Demand for Computer
Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
vvi Contents
2.1.5.3 Skills Obsolescence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.1.5.4 Discrimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3 Determinants of Computer Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.1 Hypotheses and Estimation Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.2 Empirical Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.4 Employment Status Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4.1 Hypotheses and Estimation Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4.1.1 Ordinary Least Squares Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.4.1.2 Two-Stage Least Squares Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.4.2 Empirical Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.4.2.1 Ordinary Least Squares Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.4.2.2 Two-Stage Least Squares Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.5 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3 IT Training and Employment of Older Workers Within Firms 45
3.1 Theoretical and Empirical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2.1 ZEW ICT Survey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2.2 Measuring IT Intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3 Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.4 Estimation Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.4.1 Alternative Estimation Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.4.2 Fractional Response Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.5 Empirical Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62Contents vii
3.5.1 Determinants of IT Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.5.2 IT Training and Employment of Older Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.6 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4 Regional Aspects of the Digital Divide 72
4.1 Background Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.1.1 The Process of Internet Adoption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.1.2 Heterogeneity of Potential Internet Adopters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.1.3 Regional Differences in the Use of New Technologies . . . . . . . . . 78
4.1.4 The Importance of Network Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.1.5 The Digital Divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.2 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.3 The Regional Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.3.1 Hypotheses and Estimation Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.3.2 Empirical Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.4 The Individual Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.4.1 Hypotheses and Estimation Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.4.2 Empirical Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.4.3 Controlling for Selectivity Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.5 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5 Conclusion 102
Deutschsprachige Zusammenfassung 109
A Appendix for Chapter 2 123viii Contents
B Appendix for Chapter 3 130
C Appendix for Chapter 4 134
Bibliography 143
Curriculum Vitae xv
Ehrenwortliche Erklarung xvii¨ ¨List of Tables
1.1 Internet and computer skills of particular population groups . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1 Computer use at work of full-time workers in 1997 – Probit results . . . . . 32
2.2 Impact of levels and changes in average computer use – Probit results . . . 34
2.3 Employment status of older workers in 1999 and 2001 by age group . . . . . 36
2.4 Employment status change of older workers from 1997 to 1999 and from
1997 to 2001 – OLS results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.5 Employment status change of older workers – TSLS results, first-stage re-
gressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.6 Employment status change of older workers from 1997 to 1999 and from
1997 to 2001 – TSLS results, second-stage regressions . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.1 Older workers and IT training in firms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.2 IT training of firms in 2003 – Probit results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.3 Proportion of older workers employed by firms in 2006 – FRM results . . . 67
3.4 Proportionofolderworkersemployedbyfirmsin2006–IT-intensiveversus
less IT-intensive firms, FRM results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.1 Diffusion of home Internet use at county level in 2001 – FRM results . . . . 89
4.2 Determinants of starting home Internet use in 2000 or 2001 – Probit results 93
4.3 DeterminantsofstartinghomeInternetusein2000or2001–EastGermany,
Probit results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.4 DeterminantsofstartinghomeInternetusein2000or2001–WestGermany,
Probit results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
ixx List of Tables
4.5 Determinants of starting home Internet use in 2000 or 2001 – IV-Probit
results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.6 DeterminantsofstartinghomeInternetusein2000or2001–EastandWest
Germany, IV-P